WASHINGTON – After the flub heard around theworld, President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office. Again.Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the oath to Obama on Wednesdaynight at the White House — a rare do-over.

Thesurprise moment came in response to Tuesday’s much-noticed stumble,when Roberts got the words of the oath a little off, which promptedObama to do so, too.

Don’t worry, the White House says: Obama has still been president since noon on Inauguration Day.

Of course the White House says that. But we know the truth. President Joe Biden was our 43.5th President, for a day 🙂

My friend (and accomplished writer) G. Willow Wilson spent several years living in Cairo after converting to Islam. In her Journal at Talk Islam she relates her observations about the differences in how Islam is lived in breathed in Cairo versus in the convert community in Seattle where she presently resides. It’s a great piece about identity, which is pretty much the central tension in any muslim-American’s life. Here’s a teaser excerpt:

In Egypt Islam is like a natural extension of the body. It permeates
and is permeated by everyday life. People may be dishonest, angry,
ugly, crude, vicious, but all these things are artificial, like the
industrial waste spewed into the Nile and the sky until it warps babies
in the womb. They are all the result of a society squeezed until it
broke and bled. When God enters a conversation, the ugliness vanishes,
and the disgusting sinner who leers at girls on the subway becomes a
poet. The absurdity of that-the horror of it; the wonder of it; the
capacity of the divine to wheedle Its way into the grotesque-shaped my
relationship with God. For good or ill. I never lost sight of the fact
that when I prayed, it was not only to Al Rahman, but to Al Khafid. The
Debaser. I could look at His terrible Names without flinching or
rationalizing. He created beauty and filth side by side, like a hammer
and an anvil, and it is for us to break or bend.

That was Cairo.

When I came back to my own country, I had a naive idea that I could
go on being an American and a Muslim, and avoid learning to be an
American Muslim. That lasted about six months. What miserable and
laughable months.

Related – my review of Mullahs on the Mainframe, an ethnography about my own community and how we have adapted the demands of tradition with the realities of modernity. Again, it boils down to identity, and reconciliation.

Change came to the virtual White House as well as the physical one yesterday – WhiteHouse.gov has re-launched in true Obama fashion by featuring a blog as its centerpiece and promises to publish legislation and executive orders online for the public to review. I have some commentary on the role of the WH.gov website as a civic instrument over at metaBLOG and defend it from critiques that it isn’t “open” enough (by not allowing comments, etc).

I posted President Obama’s inauguration speech video and transcript earlier, but I just want to highlight the part where he directly addressed the muslim world:

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and
nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from
every end of this Earth.

And because we have tasted the bitter
swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter
stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old
hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon
dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall
reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new
era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.

To
those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their
society’s ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on
what you can build, not what you destroy.

To those who cling to
power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know
that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a
hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

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about

Aziz Poonawalla

Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards.

The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the
Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same
name:

Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion;
And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust.
-- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass

IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod,
A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God,
Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall,
And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all!
-- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)